


Best Wishes!

by Entwinedlove



Series: Bingo Bonanza 2019 [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Feels, Fluff Bingo Quarter 2, Love Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove
Summary: Bucky leaves Sam little love-notes. Sam reciprocates.





	Best Wishes!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Fluff Bingo](https://fluffbingo.dreamwidth.org/) card #35, Square O2 - Soft and also [Star-Spangled Bingo](https://star-spangled-bingo.tumblr.com/) Square O3 - Love Letters

[ ](https://imgur.com/HcElO6c)

Sam smiled as he picked up the green sticky note stuck to the inside of the fridge behind the orange juice bottle.

"You Make Me Happy."

Generic and cheesy, as usual, but once Sam got past the ridiculous Hallmark-esque quality of the notes he could appreciate them for what they were.

Love letters.

The Bucky Barnes of the 1930s hadn't really come back. His memory and mind were fragmented—not so much as to make him slow or challenged or anything—but he didn't operate like Sam or even Steve. The Barnes that found himself after Project Insight fell and HYDRA was exposed was something else. He wasn't the Winter Soldier but he also wasn't the Bucky Steve remembered.

It had been tough for Steve to accept and he'd gone on a long overdue vacation of sorts. Soul searching, now that he had the opportunity. The road had been rocky. Steve and Barnes were both capable of understanding the technology but that didn't mean they were super soldiers when it came to making it work when they wanted it to. Between the tech trouble and the difficulties they both found in learning to talk about their emotions—learning to let go of things they couldn't change, to let go of the what-ifs or the should-haves—the two were starting to make some headway where their relationship wasn't as fragile or built on previous expectations.

In the meantime, Sam had been the sole focus of Barnes's intensity. At first, that meant finding Barnes in the kitchen with bloody hands. Other times it was finding doughnuts and coffee from the place down the street that Sam considered a treat waiting for him on the counter when he came back from his morning run. Fresh oranges, though the first two or three had soft spots where holding the fruit had caused a flashback and his metal arm had spasmed and crushed them.

Then Barnes had moved past pastries and fruit.

It had started with actual Hallmark cards but after the tenth generic card, Sam had sat Barnes down and told him that he ought not to waste his money on him like that. Sam didn't know where he was getting the money anyway. At least Sam could use the greeting cards; Barnes never wrote in them so he could regift them if he needed. He wasn't sure he'd ever find a need for the "Happy Nurses Day" or the "Happy Taxes Day" card. Though if he thought for a second Stark didn't have dozens of accountants working to get him every loophole in the book, he thought the card might be fun to gift anonymously. Just fly up and leave it taped to one of the tower windows.

So Barnes had graduated from Hallmark cards to post-it notes. He'd sprung for the colorful ones: neon greens, electric blues, hot pinks, and the occasional plain yellow ones mixed in. Sam had found probably three dozen of them so far and none of them were ever in the same place twice.

Once he found a "Thinking of You" stuck to a new toothbrush where his old one normally sat. Sam had strangled on his orange juice one morning when he found one bright pink note inside the bottle. The ink had smudged too much to read it but he thought it might have said, "Happy Birthday." It hadn't been his birthday but that didn't seem to matter to Barnes. The next note had been a yellow one that Sam had found first thing the following morning. On his face. He didn't know if it might have originally been on his pillow and he'd rolled on it or Barnes had deliberately been messing with him but all it said was, "I'm Sorry."

It was the middle of August and had been swelteringly hot for two weeks when Sam had found a blue post-it inside his toothpaste tube that said, "Have a Pleasant Religious or Secular Winter Celebration of Your Choice." There wasn't any toothpaste left in the tube. The note wasn't even minty smelling.

"You've got to be shitting me," Sam mumbled. He opened the cabinet under the sink where he kept extras. He almost expected a second note to be there taunting him for the first but there wasn't. It did give him an idea, though. On his way in from his run, Sam stopped at the corner store and found a simple pack of plain off-brand sticky squares.

As often as Barnes was in Sam's house, he didn't stay in the spare bedroom or on the couch as far as Sam could tell. He'd tried to get him to stay but Barnes had argued that he was dangerous. He obviously hadn't gone too far though.

Sam wrote several notes for Barnes to find. "You're All Right With Me," You Can Sleep Under My Roof Anytime," "You're Safe Here." He also decided to be just as silly and random as Barnes. "You Deserve a Doughnut with Sprinkles," "Happy Mother's Day," "Best Wishes on the Birth of Your New Puppy," and "Congratulations!" He left them in places around his home that he knew Barnes tended to check. The fridge, the bathroom mirror. He even put one on the inside of the attic door.

The following morning, Sam woke up early seemingly at random. Out of curiosity, in case he caught Barnes sneaking through his house, Sam tossed the covers back and crept through the room. The door to the spare bedroom was ajar and Sam peeked in to see Barnes, in one of Sam's t-shirts and shorts, on top of the bed. His mouth was relaxed in sleep and his soft breaths made a stray strand of hair dance where it hung in front of his face. Stuck to his metal arm were all of the yellow post-it notes Sam had left him. Sam smiled and turned to leave and found another yellow note stuck to the door at eye-level. All it said was, "Thank you."


End file.
